Supporting your workforce to make healthy food choices is in the best interests of your business.
It's also in the interests of the whole community, because any knowledge and skills about healthy eating gained at work can be passed onto family/whānau.
Many factors within the workplace have a significant role in influencing what and how people eat at work.
These include the:
choice, availability and cost of different food and drink options at work
promotion and marketing of food and drink choices
working practices in the workplace (such as workload, hours of work)
facilities available for buying and/or preparing food and drinks
dietary habits of workmates
each person's knowledge and skills around healthy food.
Healthy people = healthy workers
Helping employees improve or maintain their health is good for business. Healthy people tend to take less sick leave and are generally less likely to develop ongoing conditions.
Eating healthily reduces our chances of developing nutrition-related diseases such as:
cardiovascular conditions (heart attacks, angina, cardiac arrest, arrhythmia)
high blood pressure
high cholesterol
type 2 diabetes and renal failure
some cancers.
Less disease can mean fewer injuries
Healthy workers are less likely to be fatigued so are more alert to safety issues and less likely to be injured.
Data from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) shows that people with chronic health conditions are more likely to be injured and take longer to recover.
ACC attributed 10.7% of the total annual cost of all injuries from July 2008 to June 2011 to the presence of the most common medical conditions. And often people with one condition will develop other conditions (co-morbidities).
See Ideas and advice for ways you can take action to support healthy food choices at work.